Unit 9 The human rights lawyer

Video documentary transcript

Dr Guglielmo Verdirame
My name is Guglielmo. Im Italian. Im a lecturer
in Public International Law at the University
of Cambridge and Im a barrister practising in
London. My field of interest is Public International
Law, which is the law that governs relations
between states. I became interested in Public
International Law after taking a course taught by
a very inspirational professor who later became
the first woman judge of the International Court
of Justice, and indeed the president of the
International Court of Justice.
So, when people think International Law, they
think United Nations. And quite rightly so because
the United Nations is the principal institution that,
er, deals with issues of International Law. The
United Nations was established after the Second
World War. Membership of the United Nations
is universal by now; every state in the world is
a member of the United Nations. So, the United
Nations created other organisations that deal with
more specific problems. The General Assembly,
for example, has established a programme that
deals with children, UNICEF; er, a programme
that deals with refugees, the United Nations High
Commission for Refugees; a programme that
focuses on development, the UNDP. So, these
organisations are part of the UN family and,
legally, they are subsidiary programmes created
by the United Nations.
So, after deciding that I was interested in Public
International Law intellectually, I took the decision
to explore the field in a more practical sense.
I wanted to see International Law in action,
so I decided to undertake research in Africa
on the condition of refugees. The issues that
I investigated in particular were the extent to
which refugees enjoyed their fundamental human
rights in countries of asylum. And thats where
I encountered the United Nations during a real
operation, because the United Nations refugee
agency, UNHCR, had a significant presence
in Kenya. There were two very large refugee
camps which were administered by the United
Nations. Its main function there was to provide

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humanitarian assistance to the refugee population,

but the issues in which I became particularly
interested were questions of accountability,
because, inevitably, when you exercise significant
powers you also, er, have to be accountable for
the manner in which, er, you exercise them.
The first decade of the 21st century was a very
difficult time in international relations. At one point
it seemed that the United Nations was going to be
one of the victims of the terrorist attacks of 9/11
because states, er, were less, erm, willing to act
through international institutions, including the
United Nations. Inevitably when national security
is at stake, states will, er, be more disinclined to
use international institutions, but it is also true that
over the years, er, states recognised by states
I mean really the entire international community
that there was no alternative to action through
international institutions. If one looks at the
practice of the Security Council after 9/11, one
will find, er, various examples of interventions by
the Security Council in international crises and
in many cases with a surprisingly large degree
of international consensus. It is true there were
a number of conflicts that were particularly
controversial after the terrorist attacks of 9/11,
but there were also many other situations in which
states actually decided, in agreement, to deal
with a particular situation by adopting certain
measures that range from the imposition of
sanctions on certain actors to, er, the use of force.
One area in which I would very much like to
see an improvement in the record of the United
Nations is accountability, which is where my
interest in the United Nations as an institution
began. Inevitably, when an organisation exercises
more powers, the issue of accountability will
become more and more central, and on any view
the United Nations today is an important but also
a very powerful organisation, and one that I think
we ought to expect should exercise its powers in
a way that is accountable to its beneficiaries and
that is transparent.

Photocopiable Cambridge University Press 2011